


The light doesn't go out until you bid me goodbye

by sieka



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, Implied Character Death, Phantom of the Opera prompt, Tumblr Prompt, bad name calling, mentions of abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-09
Updated: 2015-01-09
Packaged: 2018-03-06 20:30:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3147617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sieka/pseuds/sieka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sunlight fleetingly warms your skin from where it passed from the windows, the curtains float gently by the wind sailing it with gentle strokes, you know by then that it's pointless to try and look for sleep but you're content in the warm cocoon that you are blessed to find yourself in, safe, warm and alive in her arms.</p><p>You think this is heaven on earth and all of this is only possible in her arms alone.</p><p>Late response to a Tumblr prompt from an Anon back in December. The prompt is: Carmilla Karnstein as The Phantom of the Opera with Laura Hollis as Christine Daae. Plot twist and configuration inside.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The light doesn't go out until you bid me goodbye

**Author's Note:**

> Written in Carmilla's POV.
> 
> There are definitely mistake down ahead and I apologize for that as early as now.

 

The cold seeps into your skin, your bones ache with familiarity and you are reduced into a shivering mess in the dark, amongst the animals of this wretched hell they deem to give laughter and happiness to people. And sadly, you aren’t amongst those considered human by the witch that took you as her slave, you were her toy, a marionette that she played in front of the crowd, marking you inch by inch for her own pocket’s pleasure and to the audience’s amusement.

You endured each new torture she comes up with, from the one where she beats you up badly until your bones cracked to digging knives and carving three slash marks on the right side of your face but all of those torture you’ve suffered from is a part of the clustered anger you’ve been restraining desperately inside you until the witch mistakenly tries to open that box—your Pandora’s box.

In a rare moment of frivolous confidence, you snagged what you’ve always wanted, what you’ve been thirsting for so long. You gained freedom, hands reached out to take the warm red liquid that tricked from that witch’s neck and you smile—it’s a befitting end for someone as wretched and vile as her. No one else could ever enjoy your celebration, but the fact that you hear them screaming, running and crying out in fear satisfy the darkness trying to claw out of your ribs.

You laugh for the very first time in what seems to be never.

Sadly your celebration is cut off when you hear anxious scared men, clambering to get inside the tent where your show is upheld.

You panic, the freedom you won hard for now threatened to spill down to the ground to waste and the blur of happiness that fogs your vision clears up and all you can see is the rusty iron bars of your jail, that wretched master of yours lied on the hay, red liquid pooling underneath her unmoving pale body.

Fright clogs your mind, you need to get out, you don’t know why, but a part of you just knows what would happen if you continue to stay in this hell.

You hear hurried footsteps nearing you, you turn around sharply, ready to bare your teeth and claws out, but instead of another vile faced demonic human, you instead faced by a lovely young girl with curly red hair. The look on her face makes you want to fold into yourself, the way you can see your inhuman figure in her eyes makes you cringe.

You stay cautious around her, she’s saying something, about letting you out and hiding, you don’t really try to process any of it when she unlocks your rusting cage and throws her shawl over your thin dirty frame and held you by your wrist as you are jerked out from the cage and the tent and into the burning brilliant light of the day shining down you.

You look back for a moment as the tent closes slowly to see the police looking around inside and back at the figure of the girl that’s pulling you expertly around and through the mass of people.

Never have you ever felt _this_ free, the level of exhilaration that you feel is of an unspeakable volume, so far from the one you felt when you finally ended that witch.

A smile dons your lips; you kick your feet off the ground as you put more energy in the way you run, following the girl. For once, you think for a second that you’re a bird with wings stretched out and gliding in air with the way the wind caresses your cheeks.

 

* * *

 

You are led into a dark dusty room. It’s old and everything screams of disuse and you don’t know why the girl led you here, but you don’t do anything yet. You watch her intently as she closes the window and turns to face you nervously.

Silence dawns between you with you just staring at her and the girl starting to pace around as she worked on something in her mind before she faces you again. She tells you that you should stay here, that you could hide here, away from other people.

It’s a wonderful preposition and you don’t deny her, you can’t, not with the way she gently tells you the dangers of the world around you and your vulnerability against all the odds.

You listen to her, you don’t intend to do anything but listen with her motherly voice as she spoke to you like a child. You feel a tiny bit of warmth heating up inside your chest and it makes you put a hand at the center of your still developing breast.

You end up staying.

 

* * *

 

Days turn to weeks and weeks turn to months, the curly red haired girl that bought you here tries to visit you weekly with food for you. You find out a little bit later that her name is Lola Perry and the place that you’re staying in is an theatre when you had asked her out of pure curiosity when you first heard of people singing above you, whispering unfamiliar words you can’t deem to put your mind to understand.

You do can understand a bit of what Perry says, but you want to know, you want to learn, you needed to understand and Perry consents. She brings you books to read in her next visit, sometimes she’d help teach you a thing or two and you didn’t need anything else.

You read, read and read and learned and wondered. You’ve mastered other forms as you busy yourself in different kinds of books and fields, arts, poems, songs, languages, philosophy and so much more and it still leaves you breathless and amazed.

The world is vast, that much is what it says in every book you’ve read, but all of which is far from your grasp, you want to experience it but you are aware even without Perry telling that you can’t do that. It’s dangerous for someone like you to grace your presence to the world for the world knew not to accept you.

So you kept to yourself and the life that you have with the few books that you keep stored in the quarter’s you’ve designed for yourself, by now, it is little by little filled with all sorts of other books that Perry brings with her and you find the littlest joys in the knowledge that you hungrily devour. Yet you seek more, you need more, the hunger in you cannot be satisfied by just knowing.

It isn’t enough, it never is.

You’re aware that even though you aren’t in that witches clutches, this freedom that you’ve gain isn’t whole yet and that’s what you want, a sense of control in your life—your full control over your own life.

The thought of it stills in your mind in the next few days, when in one of your book reading you hear the voice of a lovely angel—a girl with a golden voice that makes you imagine of light, that warm blinding light on that faithful day you were pulled out of the tent.

You close your book and tracked where that wonderful voice came from, attracted and drawn like a moth to a fire for the person who made you feel warm amidst the coolness of the dirty mossy sewage that you lurk around and call as your home.

When you finally stop in track in front of a mirror, you knew without a doubt that the beating sound of your heart restarts again after it was left to rot, crushed by that witch’s hands. And you think, little by little you are being mended wholly, not just by parts, but completely whole and just the idea of that makes you teary eyed.

You kneel down and clasp both your hands as if in a prayer as you stare at the figure of a small taupe child, so full of brimming joy and warmth, through the mirror that stood in between you two. You know she can’t see you, she isn’t even aware that you are there even though she’s standing in front of you, the mirror must be only reflecting her image back to her, and you thank which ever gods and deity you know in your mind because she stays and you let yourself soak in the basking warmth of her glowing light.

You’ve never felt more alive than ever, escaping from your fate can’t even compare to this, and you think that maybe it’s because you’ve been living half of your existence still dead until she came and graced your life.

It’s only befitting that you call her your one sole beacon that fills light in your lonely dark world.

 

* * *

 

She comes back again in that room and you stay around just enough to know when she’ll leave. It becomes increasingly frequent that she visits that place but you’ve still yet to announce your presence to her. You know she’s not ready to see you as you are, you sniff sadly and because you’ve seen yourself in a mirror already, though just looking at your own figure is enough to send your stomach churning.

You’d rather she doesn’t know you exist than for her to leave and never come back.

When two months have passed with her visit coming increasingly more alarming, you are thankful yet alarmed for her more frequent and extended stays, but when she doesn’t leave the room for dinner it makes you frown until you are floored down to the ground when you hear her start to sob.

She’s crying, no, she’s mourning, you hear her call out for her father and mother, you see the marks of depression that clings and marks her face and dims the light in her spirit, it upsets you so much at how something like this could happen, how something so cruel has occurred to your light. But you know that no one can ever escape death but it’s an untimely thing to occur, especially for a young child like her.

You didn’t even ever pause for a moment that you should also consider yourself in that sad light because you too also have been orphaned at a young age. It never came in your mind in the first place.

She cries for minutes long, mourns in a dark dusty room in front of a mirror and with you as her only witness, she calls God and prays. You want to hold her in your arms, tell her that she’ll be alright and make her feel the same equal warmth you felt from her constant presence in your life—but you don’t.

You sing to her because only your voice can reach her without her running from you in fear.

And when she stops crying and listens to you, you think that the drizzling rain that came down the theatre on that night stops when she starts to smile again.

 

* * *

 

Both of you would often frequently sing nowadays, after that day she would come to seek your presence whenever she could come by, she’d tell you how her days would go, of how well her dance practice went and all the other adventures she’s had during the day and you’d sing to her and teach her as much as you can in arts.

You also finally find out her name after long months of lingering in the dark and holding your breath. You finally had a name to the angel of your life and you learn more and more that there are just so many qualities that you love about her—that you love about Laura Hollis and you are very much aware how attached you are to her that you know it’ll be your death if anyone tries to take her away from you.

Time passes fast and she grows beautifully, blooming into a wonderful young woman fitting of the angelic purity that renowned artists paint for the world to admire. Though you smile and chuckle to yourself of her height, she hasn’t grown any taller, she actually stopped when she had turned 15. You don’t care about that little detail though because you’d love her regardless whether she’s a few inches shorter than you.

Now if only people could appreciate her just as much as you do, surely they would replace that wench of a lead they often picked to play the leading roles of the plays you’ve written for this theatre house. They’d do well to actually replace her considering that her notes are always off by a few bars. _Ugh._

An idea comes into your mind. If they can’t replace that wench then you’ll have to take the matters into your own hands in order to let them see who the true star is.

You and Laura end your singing lessons on a high note and her smile is so beatific that it cements the plan in your mind to accomplish it no matter what.

 

* * *

 

By the next practice for the new play _‘Hannibal’_ , you’ve finally achieved your goal of having Laura as the lead of your masterpiece after you’ve successfully sabotaged that wench’s—Bertha, or Betty was it? Who cares because you successfully tampered with her mouth spray and she’s now out of your theatre. Though you think that there are other pesky people who try to go against your plans, like those two new people and some of those that seek your presence (you know about the rumours that people spread about you, calling you the ‘ _Ghost of the Opera_ House’).

You watch Laura practice one of the songs before fleeing the scene before you get caught by that annoying guy that works above the stage handling the lights, your black cape dancing in the air as you fled before anyone sees you.

You don’t see Laura’s happy smile or the fleeting glance she gave at a tall red head in the process of your escape and maybe that was your mistake for not staying longer enough.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Well, this is just a note on who is who that was mentioned above, the format is - name Carmilla used in her POV / Phantom of the Opera Character:
> 
> The witch / The ringmaster - The Dean.  
> The girl with curly red hair / Madame Giry - Perry.  
> The girl with a golden voice; angel / Christine Daae - Laura.  
> The wench / Carlotta - Betty.  
> Annoying guy who operates the lights - Will.  
> The tall red head / Raoul - Danny.
> 
> I watched the 2004 film of The Phantom of the Opera as my reference, but I did tweak things when I wrote this.


End file.
